I woke up on Firday morning, and I couldn’t put my right foot on the floor, because the pain was so severe it made me nauseated and dizzy. The pins and needles and lightening strike pains suggested nerve compression. Out of the blue. No warning, just waking up in agony.
Thankfully we live 5 mins walk from the hospital, which became a 15min hop to the Accident and Emergency Dept, supported by my hubby (great way to celebrate a fortnight of marriage), who then had to leave me and go to work. Within an hour and a half I had an X-ray, 6 days worth of damn strong anti-inflammatory pain killers (Nimesulide) and a diagnosis of plantar fasciitis.
Apparently at some point in the recent past I had broken my foot, and have recently put some extra stress on the old injury, causing the deep tissues to swell and the resulting swelling was compressing nerves.
I’m no chicken when it comes to pain (walking on a broken foot without noticing it was broken should give you a clue that I have a reasonably high pain threshold) but this was a whole new, fun world of agony. I took my pills, got a taxi home and spent the rest of the day in bed, pretty out of it.
I’ve been feeling much better, but this is solely because of the painkillers, my foot is still puffy and sore before they kick in. I’m supposed to start a new surgical rotation today, but walking a 2 hour ward round followed by 3 hours standing in theatre isn’t going to happen, as I need another couple of days taking it easy.
So now I have to walk to the hospital, find my team, and tell them my lame-sounding excuse, while quite obviously off my face on pain pills.
Did they tape your foot? I’ve been troubled with plantar fasciitis for a number of years. When it really flares up, I’ve been shown a way to tape it to support it. I have had to wearstrange shoes for it too, but mine is chronic, so these were a late addition.
Do Irish hospitals not have phones? Why can’t you just call the head of your clinical rotation?
I have had both PF and a bone spur (still have the bone spur–and I can no longer run because of it. There are those who say, keep running, the pain’ll ease up–to them I say, “bite me”.) PF is horrible.
I use orthotic inserts now (I have an extremely high arch) that the podiatrist gives me–they work wonders. As a nurse, I am on my feet for 12+ hours per shift–and I have kids.
I’ve also suffered from plantar fasciitis. The pain in my right foot was so great that I could barely make if 15 minutes going barefooted in the AM.
It took 3 years for me to get it under control through the use of orthotics and therapy. I can happily say that I am completely off the orthotics now, though I still have to look for shoes with good arch support. Also, I’m still doing the therapy every morning when I wake up. This consists of a simple series of foot and ankle flexing that helps keep things loose and streached out.
I stayed off it for a while, and took some anti-inflammatories. Oddly enough, it really got me on my honeymoon. We did a lot of hiking and I had bad shoes.
I had plantar fasciitis, too. Nearly crippled me for a while. I walk miles and miles in hospitals doing wireless network design, so being able to walk was critical to my job. I would go to bed at night, miserable, and even more miserable in the morning because I could hardly bear putting weight on my left foot, in particular, but both feet were involved. My podiatrist recommended a shoe called Z-Coils, and the relief, though not immediate, was dramatic. I was able to avoid surgery and was walking “normally” within 3 months. Now, 2 years later, I hardly have to wear them at all when I’m home, and only wear them when I have a large survey to do at a hospital. The shoes weren’t cheap, at $180, but they beat an expensive surgery and being off my feet and out of work for 6 - 8 weeks.
[QUOTE=irishgirl]
…my lame-sounding excuse…QUOTE]
Excellent choice of words
PF is a pain in the rear (of the foot). My spouse and I have both had bouts with this. Mine tends to flare up if I’m spending a lot of time on the treadmill, which really stinks as that’s the main aerobic exercise I can actually force myself to stick with.
I’m a bit surprised nobody has mentioned steroid injections directly into the affected areas. Yeah, the shots hurt like a motherfuck and you have to stay off that foot as much as possible for a day or two (but you need to anyway even w/o the steroid) but they can provide rapid, dramatic relief of the pain. Generally they mix in a local anesthetic (lidocaine or something) with the steroid, so you have some immediate relief (or maybe that helps mask the immediate pain of the shot).
I’ve also been told to go barefoot as little as possible - as in, not even to get up to go to the bathroom at night. I am rather casual about following this advice (i.e., I ignore it completely). Birkenstocks or other comfy, easy-to-slip-on footwear can be useful there (I wear nothing but Birks when I can get away with it).
There are also stretching/strengthing exercises you can do to help keep things under control.
Interesting about the Z-coil shoes - I’ll have to ask my podiatrist about them. He’s the one who turned me onto Birkenstocks. Of course, the z-coils look like something that I’d get caught on the edges of stairs, and I don’t need any extra encouragement to trip…
OMG–the pain. I would take labor all over again, compared to that pain, post shot.
but after 24 hours, it was fine–MUCH better…and so far, the orthotics and the stretching has helped keep the pain to a minimum. I still get pain when I don’t wear my orthotics–they don’t fit every shoe and I do have SOME fashion sense!
The doctor recommended Birkenstocks to me, and I began wearing firm flip-flops around the house instead of going barefoot as I had. I rarely have problems with it anymore.
I have very high arches and tiny feet (Birkenstocks, for example, only make my size in a pink floral kiddie style, designed for 7 year olds), which makes buying good shoes difficult at the best of times.
Apparently it’s the old injury which triggered this for me, as the pain is in my cuboid fossa and at the base of my toes on the top of my foot, over the old fracture line, rather than the sole or heel where it typically occurs. It’s nowhere near bad enough for steroids, orthotics or special shoes, we’re hoping it’s just an acute reaction to walking a lot on honeymoon (while I was wearing my very supportive, very comfy Dr Marten sandals, so I doubt I could have improved my footwear).
eleanorigby I had to go in to get the bleep number of the new intern and SHO as the teams changed on the 1st of October. Calling the Consultant’s secretary is a much less effective way of getting my message across than bleeping the intern, arranging to meet them in person and limping up the corridor. Monday is one of my team’s days in theatre, so I knew calling anyone senior wasn’t an option. I’ve been told to take as much time as I need, they’re not expecting me before Wednesday- woohoo!
After years of treating this in folks, I’ve found that for chronic cases, taping works best for most. Better than NSAIDS, better than heel cups, better than steroid injections.
And if the patient is really limber, you can teach them to tape their own feet!!
I had a mild case of PF a few years ago, mostly manifesting in painful hobbling for a few minutes after prolonged sitting or lying down – but until it hobbled off, man was it awful! NSAIDS didn’t do much, not least because I had to walk from wherever I was to get them.
I went to an acupuncturist on a friend’s recommendation. Besides the needles, I got a thorough massage of the feet and ankles. Dunno whether it was one, the other, or both together, but I walked out of there with the pain damn near gone. And it stayed damn near gone. One more treatment a week later, and no more pain.
That was two or three years ago. Recently there’ve been hints that it’s coming back. Time to see the acupuncturist again.
Yes, I had this for about a year in my right foot. I absolutely cannot imagine having it in both feet. It started when I got these gumby shoes because I was having pain in one of my left toes (since had surgery for that) and my son dragged me all over Munich to visit all the places he used to live, work, etc. Then when we got to Spain, we had to walk everywhere because there is no place to park, and so…by the time I got home several weeks later I was limpling with pain. Getting out of bed was a bugger. I got a cortisone shot and that provided relief for about 3 months; meanwhile I got an orthotic and got some Basics walking shoes. The cortisone is apparently not good for bone and cartilege so I opted not to do that again. After a couple of months of the orthotic, shoes and foot stretches, I still have it for about five minutes when I first get up in the morning, but as long as I use the orthotic and wear the Basics I’m pretty much okay. I do find that the day after doing a lot of walking it’s hurts more. I have some hope from reading the posts here that it may go away all together eventually. The foot exercises you can find online and I believe that did help. http://orthopedics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=orthopedics&zu=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportsinjuryclinic.net%2Fcybertherapist%2Ffront%2Ffoot%2Fplantarfasciitis%2Fplantarstretch.php
